Truth, Lies, and Second Dates Page 6

  “I told you not to invite her.” This from the always-helpful Monahan matriarch, who when she wasn’t wringing her bird-like hands, was cracking her bird-like knuckles. Wait. Did birds have knuckles? “I said, didn’t I?”

  “It’s not like he was doing me any favors,” Ava mumbled, wishing she’d faked appendicitis or amnesia or blindness or a coma or scurvy—anything that would have gotten her out of the Monahan madness. Because here they all were, again. Upset and finger-pointing like they’d been paid. Again.

  “Ma!” From Dennis, who was clearly Fed Up. “Not now with that, okay?” Wait, with that? Mama Monahan had said something like this before? Then: “Detective, I don’t get any of this.” Dennis was raking his fingers through his hair and looking not a little deranged. “Can someone please run down the sequence of events for me? Quietly? And super, super gently?”

  “Sure. An employee of the funeral home got here at seven thirty A.M., saw the mess, called 911 to report a break-in and vandalism. When we got here we realized it was a little more than random vandalism. We contacted your mother, and she suggested you and Miss Capp might have some insight.”

  “No, my ma suggested that Captain Capp might have done it. Or been in on it.” He turned to the older woman, who was lingering just on the outside of their small circle, now clutching her purse so hard the knuckles were dead white. “Ma, Ava and I were together last night. All night. There’s no way she did this.”

  “Not ‘together’ together,” Ava put in hastily, and Mrs. Monahan looked slightly less appalled. “We just hung out. For hours. But we didn’t do anything else. Besides drinking. If you were … y’know. Worried.”

  “Or you got him drunk so you could dump him and come back and do…” Her lip curled as she eyed the devastation. “This.”

  “No one,” Ava replied dryly, “has to ‘get’ Dennis drunk.” She wasn’t sure if he was an alcoholic, but the boy liked his booze and no mistake. “Besides—” The total stranger I was throwing myself at can verify I’m telling the truth. Argh. There’s just no way to make that sound unslutty. Not that I owe this harpy an explanation. The cops, though …

  “Ma! Is this why you told me to bring Ava?” Then he slapped his forehead. “Dumb question, of course that’s why.” He gave Ava an apologetic shrug.

  “You were keeping things back ten years ago, and you’re withholding information right now, young lady!”

  “I am not! And I’m pushing thirty, for God’s sake, so feel free to drop the always-condescending ‘young lady’ nonsense.”

  Detective Springer had been watching the squabble with the air of a man watching a tennis match where the players hit each other instead of the ball. “Is there anything you can tell us, Captain Capp?”

  “I didn’t even know about this until I drove Dennis here. Last night we hung out, then went to bed late.” If push came to shove, she’d bring Tom into it. Better that Mrs. Monahan think she was a hussy than a … what? Vandal? Upender of tables and spreader of ash? “That’s it.”

  “Captain Capp has an alibi until 1:50 A.M.”

  “Yeah, what he s—Tom?” She gaped—she’d almost used up her gape allowance for the month, but it was definitely warranted. There was her make-out buddy du nuit, freshly showered and shaved and wearing a crisp, white button-down with black slacks. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “And what were you doing to Ava until 1:50 A.M.?” From Dennis, who had a knack for making things worse.

  “This is Dr. Tom Baker from the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office,” the detective explained.

  “But … there’s no body.”

  Springer coughed. “Technically there is.”

  “It’s nice to see you again, Ava,” Tom said with textbook-perfect politeness.

  “Uh,” she replied, because what the hell?

  Definitely should have read that card last night, she realized, bad lighting be damned.

  Twelve

  “Son of a buggering switch!”

  Oh, good, Ava thought. My surreal weekend isn’t over yet.

  She was in the small waiting area of the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office, and wasn’t that macabre? She had no idea they had waiting rooms. For dentists, sure. For auto repair, of course. For morgues … huh. One of those things you never think of until you’re in it.

  After giving her statement to Detective Springer, and further squabbling with Mrs. Monahan, she had seen the morgue truck pulling out and, before she consciously realized what she was doing, had hopped in her rental car and followed it to Saint Paul. Dennis could get a ride with his mom. Or a cop. Or thumb it. Or Uber it. Or live in the funeral home.

  “Fuck!” she said aloud, because her thoughts hadn’t been enough; she needed sound and volume. She’d rarely felt more vulgar in her life. Everything was filthy and ruined. Again.

  So she’d carpe’d the diem and followed the rolling morgue. It reminded her of when she was younger and the neighborhood kids would run into their houses for money

  (“Wait for meeeeeee!”)

  and then trot behind the ice cream truck while it blared “Pop Goes the Weasel,” occasionally stopping to hand out that holiest of holies, the ice cream sandwich.* The parallel was so ludicrous she started laughing, and somewhere between the exit for 494 and University Avenue, the giggles had turned to tears. And not the delicately beautiful ones, like Demi Moore’s perfect teardrops rolling down her perfect cheeks in Ghost. No, ugly, noisy sobs, the kind that required multiple Kleenexes and lots of nose blowing.

  Now here she was, after walking through hallways and trying to wrap her brain around the fact that Danielle, who had been laid to rest, was never laid to rest. It all got churned up again, and what the hell did WRONG mean? Wrong girl? Wrong funeral home? Wrong Monahan?

  A month after Danielle’s murder, she had told herself it was over. She did it again at the one year mark, the two year mark, five, eight, ten: years spent satisfactorily observing that everything was under control and it was definitely over.

  Hokey as it was, she understood and was facing it now: it would never be over, no matter how far she flew.

  WRONG.

  She closed her eyes, but could still see the staggered, dirty-gray lettering on the wall, the accusation in Danielle’s ashes for everyone to see.

  “Captain Capp?”

  And there was Tom again, looking as delicious as he had last night, though he was absently rubbing his knee. She assumed that was why he’d yelled.

  Now, as she had last night, she found him quite striking. Ever since she saw a buff Patrick Stewart in a tank top (Star Trek: First Contact—both her parents had been exuberant Trekkies), she’d equated bald with brainy/sexy. In particular, bald on purpose.

  She realized she’d been staring at him without saying anything. “Oh, it’s Captain now?”

  “It’s whatever you’d like,” he replied coolly.

  “Why’d they call you?”

  He smiled a little. “They know I like the odd ones.”

  “Oh.”

  “You followed me here.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t seem alarmed or angry. He just looked at her and waited. And when she didn’t elaborate, he added, “You have some questions for me.”

  “Actually, I think you probably have some questions for me.”

  “Come with me,” he said, which should have been annoying—so perfunctory!—but really, it was comforting to have something to do. There were hierarchies everywhere, in particular her job (and perhaps his?) and sometimes knowing where everyone was supposed to be was … was nice. She didn’t know why.

  She followed him out of the waiting room, down a hall bare of everything but nameplates and an exit sign, and into a surgically neat office, presumably Dr. Thomas Baker’s office, according to the sign.

  “So.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You were a witness. Ten years ago, not last night.”

  “A piss-poor one,” she admitted. “I never saw a t
hing. By the time I got back, she was—it was over.”

  “It must have been difficult.”

  Worst. Small talk. Ever. “I—yeah. Just a smidge. And then ten years roll by and suddenly it’s like it happened yesterday. Like it’s still fresh.”

  “For someone, it is fresh.”

  “Yeah.” Because he was right. Someone had been pissed about the murder. Or the memorial. Or both. Then, “Son of a buggering switch?”

  Tom flushed red. Which shouldn’t have been adorable, but was. “Ah. I hit my knee when I heard you come in. I apologize. I’m trying not to use profanity around my niece.”

  “I think buggering is profanity.”

  “No. No?”

  “Have you been to the United Kingdom? Pretty sure it is.”

  “Then it goes on the list at once,” he replied, and to her surprise he extracted a small notebook from his shirt pocket, produced a pencil from somewhere, scribbled a note, put the pad away.

  “Huh.”

  “Yes.”

  “You take that pretty seriously.”

  “She is insanely precocious and no one wants another Cokesucker incident.”

  “Yes, that makes sense.” Then they just eyeballed each other as the silence stretched.

  What are you doing?

  Stalling so we can keep talking? If I stand here like a dummy long enough, maybe he’ll tell me about the Cokesucker incident.

  “Would you like to meet for breakfast later today?”

  “Wh-what?”

  “In a professional capacity,” he said quickly, because of course he meant a professional capacity and was she trolling for dates now? Clearly their relationship was going to be purely business going forward, which was a good thing, a very good thing, a thing she richly desired, so it was fine. Everything was fine. “I’d like to do some more research and ask you some follow-up questions.”

  “Okay…” Something was off. They’d only been speaking for a few minutes, but he was bouncing from kind to businesslike and back again, like he couldn’t make up his mind how best to deal with her.

  Who cares? Talk to him. Spill your guts! He might help you think of something, he might find something that jogs your memory or—or—look, it’s preferable to moping in your hotel room, isn’t it?

  It was.

  “Ten thirty?” she asked.

  He nodded. “The Black Dog? Down the street?”

  Yes, because nothing said “time to mourn and then get back to getting on with the rest of your life yet again” like a specialty espresso sipped in a hip coffeehouse across from a medical examiner who was trying to cut back on the profanity.

  “Absolutely,” she said. “Yes.”

  So it was done, and she left Dr. Tom Baker to it (he’d gotten up to walk her out, banged his knee on the corner of the desk again, and yelped “crap on a cracker!” in his deep voice, and she had to bite her lip, hard, so as not to laugh), and within half an hour she was reacquainting herself with the hotel room bed. She was short on sleep and wanted to be fresh for breakfast, plus leave time for a trip to the drugstore, because though she’d had it less than a day, she’d already lost her moisturizer somewhere.

  And she needed it, because even though she hadn’t touched Danielle’s ashes, she couldn’t seem to stop washing her hands.

  Thirteen

  Tom Baker realized he was nearing a full-on sprint and forced himself to slow down. It wouldn’t do to burst through the door of the Black Dog Café rushed and wheezing, then try to radiate calm disinterest while he had coffee with a possible murderess whose mouth and lush curves were sin personified.

  It is deeply frigged that I am excited about this. And dammit, I am allowed to swear in the privacy of my own thoughts!

  And there she was, Ava Capp, staring pensively out the window onto the street, either because she was pensive or because she was a sociopath who could mimic pensive, and he had no idea which it was.

  He walked past the long counter and sun-splashed tables to where she was sitting in the back, though he could have picked her out from farther away. The mass of shaggy dark blond waves, the olive complexion, the eyes, and the elegant lines of her body were unmistakable. Not that he could see her eyes from this distance, but he remembered them: gray and remarkable. He was so intent on reaching her he hardly felt it when his hip slammed into the corner of the counter.

  But she’d looked around at the sound and his muffled curse (“Heckfire!”) and winced in what appeared to be perfect sympathy. She greeted him with, “How do you not have a limp? I’ve seen you do that three times in twenty hours.”

  “Irrelevant,” he said, sliding into the seat across from her.

  “Listen, I didn’t say so earlier, but I wanted to thank you for giving my alibi to the cops.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “I could only alibi you until 1:50 A.M. I didn’t see you return to your room, though I assumed you had. And you weren’t inebriated.”

  “No, Dennis drank enough for both of us,” she said dryly. “Well, thanks for speaking up anyway. Besides, surely the funeral home has security videos.”

  “Not for the parking lot or the public area. Just the prep room.”

  “Prep—”

  “Embalming area.”

  “They have cameras there? But hardly anywhere else? Do I want to know why? I don’t want to know why.” She sighed. “Too bad about the videos, though. Too easy, right?”

  “So it would seem.” Tom had no idea if Ava had caused the considerable damage to the funeral home, but he wouldn’t rule her out as a suspect. Not last night, and not ten years ago. Though it would not do to let her know that just yet. “I would prefer to discuss your deceased friend now.”

  “Uh. Okay.”

  Darn it all to heck and back. A new record. “I apologize and will try to be less blunt.”

  “Please don’t. It’s refreshing. People have been tip-toeing around this for a decade. Understandably, but it gets old.” She pushed her curls back with a sigh. “Also, now that I hear myself, there’s just no way to say that without sounding like a heinous wretch. So I’m just gonna own it.”

  He waited long enough to confirm it was his turn to speak, then said, “Danielle was stabbed repeatedly and died of exsanguination. She would have been in extreme distress before she bled out.”

  “Distress. Yeah. One way to put it.”

  “And ten years later, someone attacked her memorial and flung her ashes everywhere.”

  “Here’s your salmon scramble!” As the waitress set the plate before Ava, she glanced at it, seemed to think about it for a few seconds, then picked up her fork. This made much sense to him; regardless of the topic of conversation, fuel was necessary. “And for you, sir?”

  Breakfast? Or briefing? Breakfast briefing? Yes. More efficient. “Lox and bagel, please. And coffee. Lots.”

  As the waitress headed off, Ava said, “You must be exhausted. Up half the night, um, with me, and now here with me again.”

  “No.”

  “No, what?”

  “I don’t require much sleep.”

  “Okay.”

  “Tell me about the memorial.”

  “Besides the fact that it was a mistake?”

  “Yes, besides that.”

  “I ran into Dennis on my flight. He knew I’d be at MSP and invited me. I was on the spot and didn’t think about faking scurvy until it was too late.”

  He blinked. “All right. But you hadn’t planned to attend before that day, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “So the family and friends in attendance were surprised to see you.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” She shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t—I mean, the memorial wasn’t about me. I imagine everyone’s mind was primarily on Danielle, not my late gate crashing.”

  “And nothing unusual happened during the memorial itself.”

  “Well, I couldn’t find any booze on the premises, but that might just
be my definition of ‘unusual.’”

  He could feel himself blinking faster. Impossible to tell if she was teasing or being serious. “And afterward?”

  “Awkward small talk.”

  He grimaced in sympathy; he’d sailed through medical school but could still get tripped up trying to discuss the weather with an acquaintance. What, precisely, was there to discuss? It is sunny out. Perhaps there will be precipitation later. But perhaps not. So what brings you to the morgue?

  “So you didn’t want to be there and didn’t enjoy the socializing, but didn’t leave right away.”

  “Dennis wanted to catch up. So I talked to his mom while I waited for him to finish up.”

  “And Mrs. Monahan never left your line of sight.”

  “Oh, if only,” she groaned. “Ugh, that’s awful. The poor thing’s still mourning. I shouldn’t still be annoyed by her passive-aggressive small talk. But I was. Am.”

  “Many mothers have lost daughters.”

  Ava, who had just taken another bite of her scramble, chewed, swallowed, and asked, “Are you saying that as a general observation—”

  “People don’t always like it when I make general observations.”

  “—or is it specific to this case?”

  “The latter.” She was remarkably unfazed; often at this point in the conversation, the other participant was, to use Tom’s ex-girlfriend’s words, “weirded out by all your weird weirdness.” “I think the killer might have been at that memorial service.”

  Their waitress, a harried-yet-cheerful brunette in her forties, returned with his bagel and—excellent—his own pitcher of coffee, pouring him a cup before dashing off to deliver more food. He heavily sugared the brew. An all-nighter was nothing new for him, but his blood sugar was ridiculously low. It was the only explanation for how he couldn’t take his eyes off her. The bounce of her curls was mesmerizing. Which was ridiculous. It’s hair, for God’s sake.